Unpicking The Stitches

Someone has tried to murder a witness, and the survivor is the only one who can tell the story. Unpicking The Stitches is about the part of police work that never makes the headlines: keeping the one person alive who can put the accused away.

Inspector Jean Darblay arranges safe accommodation for the sole witness in the attempted murder case, and the episode follows the logistics of protection as closely as it follows the investigation itself. Detective Chief Inspector Jim Logan brings the weight of the CID, Detective Sergeant Sue Collier works the detail, and PC David Gallagher keeps the ground moving. Around them circle the people of the case, Carole Lund, Fred Fenton, Stuart Lawson and Thomas Briggs, any of whom might be the one who wants the witness silenced. The tension is not in the chase. It is in the waiting, in the locked doors and the checked faces and the knowledge that somebody out there is not finished yet.

Simon Masters wrote it, Christopher Barry directed. Stephanie Turner is Jean Darblay, with David Ellison as Sergeant Joseph Beck, Noel Collins as Sergeant George Parrish, Tony Caunter as Logan, Gerard Kelly as Gallagher and Susanna Dawson as Detective Sergeant Sue Collier. Lesley Daine plays Carole Lund, Alan Hulse is Fred Fenton, Brian Stephens is Stuart Lawson and Richard Bremmer is Thomas Briggs.

The show understands that witness protection is mostly tedium with a knife hidden inside it. The episode earns its tension the honest way, by making you care whether the witness lives long enough to talk.

Sometimes the most vital part of solving a crime is not finding the smoking gun. It is simply keeping someone breathing until they can say what they saw. This hour is a reminder of exactly that, and it is a good one.